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Rating: As the host introduced the evening's prestigious guest on stage and the majestic airs of "Arthur" broke out, we – halted by a platform-sandaled Shooting Star – were entering Piazza della Riforma, sweating profusely, our hearts racing.
A brief battlefield study, trench movements, a sigh of relief; five years ago, I missed Yes, magnificent, free, just twenty-five minutes from home. I won't miss out again; no, thank you.
At the piano, a somewhat bloated man, revealing a recent past made problematic by an alcohol scourge, with a bristly beard and eyebrows beginning to tell the tale of time passing. His blond hair, still long over his shoulders, leaves no doubt as to who the man in the black shirt facing a music stand-less piano is.
Around him, like gallant squires, the talented musicians of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana – conducted by the skilled Guy Protheroe, known for his intense concert activity and his notable work in film score conducting – support the wizard in his sonic spells, this time without the myriad electronic keyboards we're accustomed to: around him, only captivated faces; even the rain-laden clouds stay to listen to King Arthur.
The fingers – those fingers – flew as they did many years ago, skipping faster than the eye over the black and white ivory.
The excellent and often underrated album from 1975 is condensed and rearranged into an instrumental suite that rivals a classical overture in magnificence, vivacity, alternation of calm and instrumental fury. The grand "Arthur", the sweet "Guinevere", the roaring "Sir Lancelot And The Black Knight", and the epic "The Last Battle" become a singular work of incredible value and exquisite execution; the commendable Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera frames it with irresistible intensity and pleasing youthfulness at the key moments: simply spectacular.
After a delicate and evocative piece from "White Rock" from 1977 (which I didn't know and learned is a sound documentary of the XII Winter Olympics in Innsbruck from the previous year), it's Wakeman himself who, having quenched his thirst (fortunately with water, now that the problems are finally behind him), introduces a piece from an album he composed almost forty years ago; the ecstatic Green Manalishi (who followed every note of the violins with body movements throughout the concert) shouts, I think I can't take it.
"Catherine Howard" is, if not the most famous, perhaps the most beautiful of Henry VIII's six wives (at least of those of the blond keyboardist), and her delicate theme comes to life under the impulse of strings and brass, while percussion highlights the more progressive moments of the piece. Less majestic than the pieces centered on the legend of the King of all Britons, the six wives are nonetheless more heterogeneous and memorable in their standing as a manifesto of the endless lives of an instrument – the electronic keyboard – capable of marking an era and emblematic of the art of one of its greatest connoisseurs.
After a sensational yet now customary Beatles interlude (Wakeman is a huge admirer) in which a piercing "Eleanor Rigby" is tied to a surprising "Help!" (it's difficult to imagine a less orchestrable Fab Four song; yet the wizard succeeded, entrusting violins with the acute cry for help), it is time for one of the English musician's artistic peaks.
"Merlin The Magician" (the album of origin is apparent) is a masterpiece, with its alternation of gothic hints, airy melancholic themes, and furious battles of spells that the orchestra recreates in its very personal interpretation: the emotion is strong; yet it will have to grow even more.
For Wakeman introduces, indeed, a "brief" extract from his second, immense album, "Journey To The Centre Of The Earth", a show created for a tour widely acclaimed and recorded live in January '74.
For twenty minutes, not a sound is heard. Wakeman allows himself no pause; despite the hands burdened, his fingers seem animated with a life of their own; I may seem improper, and I apologize, but seeing him, I was reminded of a great like Petrucciani, who on the ivory keys overcame, as long as he could, his impairments and torments – certainly infinitely greater.
The orchestra is perfect; the harp is a delicate chiseling, the violins bristling slashes (the reprise of Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" is indispensable), the timpani thunderous rides. The choir enchants with its vocals, deep male voices, and bewitching female ones that give goosebumps; I can't keep my fingers still, my sternum, arms, legs turning into improvised keyboards; wonderful.
What followed – the farewell to the audience, the return to the stage for one last furious and sensational piece, the thunderous applause, the rallying cry for the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana fighting to survive, the touch-and-go in the backstage, the autograph on an improvised sheet (because remembering to bring "the six wives" from home would have been too smart), the handshake with that right hand – was a sort of inevitable already-written path, a small dream perhaps already fated in the destiny of a beautiful day, in a sequence of first instrumental frenzy and then calm ecstasy, respected in its parts as if it had truly been written.
A photo assures me that it really happened, that I saw the wizard live.
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